Don't forget about marauders price. Then cost 10 times than faction BS to manufacture. I can have few rattlesnakes for a one marauder.

Yeah? And how many of each you lose a month when running missions?

So, you are telling me that you constatly losing faction BS to rats? There is no reason they should cost that much to manufacture them.

Salvaging and tractor beam are most of the time useless.Bastion has 1min cd. They are made for range dps - MJD bonus and range bonuses in bastion.Because above they are very overtanked.DPS are not the toppest - they are T2 hulls. Price

I'm not telling that. I ask how many are *you* losing because *you* are bringing this pricing argument.

I'm bringing price argument because we can have same or better performance for much less price.

hmskrecik wrote:

On the contrary, tractor is quite useful. Salvager is debatable though. Besides, nobody forces you to use either. There are other things you can fit into those highs.

Tractor is useful? Debatable. Did you ever try mobile tractor unit?

hmskrecik wrote:

Jeremiah Saken wrote:

Bastion has 1min cd.They are made for range dps - MJD bonus and range bonuses in bastion.Because above they are very overtanked.DPS are not the toppest - they are T2 hulls.Pice

And your point is?

Overpriced (because of manufacturing cost), overtanked (when used with MJD+range dps), with useless bonuses (tractor bonus is useless with MJD most of time) , sometimes annoying micromanagment (TPs on Golem) T2 hull for nobody. It's faster to get into faction BS and they are cheaper. Marauders need to be cheaper and they need to be reworked. Bastion is the oppossite to marauding... The only things they do go are active tanking and ewar resistance, hard to say if it justify the price.

Overpriced (because of manufacturing cost), overtanked (when used with MJD+range dps), with useless bonuses (tractor bonus is useless with MJD most of time) , sometimes annoying micromanagment (TPs on Golem) T2 hull for nobody. It's faster to get into faction BS and they are cheaper. Marauders need to be cheaper and they need to be reworked. Bastion is the oppossite to marauding... The only things they do go are active tanking and ewar resistance, hard to say if it justify the price.

Price: Who cares? If you aren't losing your ships, price isn't a big deal either way. It's a one time price. Presumably you'll make far more than the price of the ship in the long run. ISK/hr matters more than a one-time price.

Overtanked: If you feel overtanked, use fewer tank mods. Bastion module is a fantastic high slot tank mod that frees up other slots for damage and utility.

After switching from faction BS to Marauder, my life is a lot easier. The only thing that sucks is the 1 min timer on bastion. You gotta make sure you don't forget to turn it off as you're getting ready to move again or else you lose a minute. But that's trivial.

Price: Who cares? If you aren't losing your ships, price isn't a big deal either way. It's a one time price. Presumably you'll make far more than the price of the ship in the long run. ISK/hr matters more than a one-time price.

ISK/hr will be better in most cases in faction BS. Please look at Machariel, and return rate is better in faction BS.

Rotho Ataru wrote:

Overtanked: If you feel overtanked, use fewer tank mods. Bastion module is a fantastic high slot tank mod that frees up other slots for damage and utility.

It has nothing to do what i'm feeling. The bonus we get to active tanking is not necessary with MJD bonus we get also. It's like devs don't know what to do with this hulls. I think they don't know what marauder means in a first place.

Rotho Ataru wrote:

After switching from faction BS to Marauder, my life is a lot easier. The only thing that sucks is the 1 min timer on bastion. You gotta make sure you don't forget to turn it off as you're getting ready to move again or else you lose a minute. But that's trivial.

I'm happy for you. My experience is opposite. Wrecks were not in range to pull them by tractors, bastion on cd, not so good dps compared to faction BS. The only good thing is ewar immunity but I have no problem with sanshas, BRs and drones in my rattle so it's situational (was good in caldari space in golem, but I never run them in rattle).

They are fine hulls in some situations but I don't think they should cost the price of a carrier.

Posted - 2017.03.14 12:20:19 -
[127] - Quote
If you prefer to full clear and loot (I do, as I find that blitzing makes me want to claw my eyes out) then a Marauder is fantastic. I love my tachyon paladin, and I'll never get rid of it. But I'm not sticking my head in the sand and claiming that a Machariel isn't in the Top 2 for Blitzing, either.

If you prefer to full clear and loot (I do, as I find that blitzing makes me want to claw my eyes out) then a Marauder is fantastic. I love my tachyon paladin, and I'll never get rid of it. But I'm not sticking my head in the sand and claiming that a Machariel isn't in the Top 2 for Blitzing, either.

I agree that the Machariel warps faster than a Paladin. I disagree that a Marauder is pointless.

Yeah I think that's it. I prefer full clears myself. Blitzing is too mind numbing. And if you're actually popping ships, Marauders beat the other ships in terms of efficiency.

Seems like most people use their marauders are snipers though. I use the tank of my paladin to fit Mega Pulses, then just sit in the middle of rats in the 25-50 range and pop them quickly. That's why I thought they were called Marauders - because they are meant to be in the fray. The range bonus on the bastion module makes pulse lasers hit a perfect sweet spot. And obviously at short range, I typically have little issues with my tractor not being in range of what I need to loot for mission complete :P

The MJD bonus I typically don't use but I keep have it on hand. MWD is more useful for me since I don't snipe.

I'm bringing price argument because we can have same or better performance for much less price.

A Marauder pays for itself in two months of relaxed mission running, and I'm being conservative here. Past that time the investment cost is irrelevant.

Jeremiah Saken wrote:

Overpriced (because of manufacturing cost), overtanked (when used with MJD+range dps), with useless bonuses (tractor bonus is useless with MJD most of time) , sometimes annoying micromanagment (TPs on Golem) T2 hull for nobody. It's faster to get into faction BS and they are cheaper. Marauders need to be cheaper and they need to be reworked. Bastion is the oppossite to marauding... The only things they do go are active tanking and ewar resistance, hard to say if it justify the price.

Decide whether you want to talk about using MJD for range or about having good performance, you cannot have both.

Tractor IS useful. If it isn't to you, that does not prove anything yet.

Yes I use mobile tractor, it has its uses and they are not cases I have a module fit on my Marauder for.

Tank is perfectly fine when I'm being actually shot at, which is almost always because I prefer good performance.

The price is the price of T2 battleship and it's the same as it always has been since I started playing this game. If you have problem with T2 economy go whine about T2 economy.

I'm not commenting on Golem because it's the only Marauder I cannot use.

Tractor IS useful. If it isn't to you, that does not prove anything yet.

Tell that to guristas rats stay out of the range. Tractor isn't usefull, just because it is to you does not prove anything. We can do this all day...

hmskrecik wrote:

Decide whether you want to talk about using MJD for range or about having good performance, you cannot have both.

Bastion gives you range bonus, MJD gets you away from rats and has time bonus. 1+1=2. I don't force you to play in sniper mode, I played brawler golem myself, but when life give you bonuses and you don't use them you are playing suboptimal. Ergo when playing in sniper mode the ability to tank so huge amount of dps is unnecessary.

hmskrecik wrote:

The price is the price of T2 battleship and it's the same as it always has been since I started playing this game. If you have problem with T2 economy go whine about T2 economy.

it doesn't has to stay that way, and it has nothing to do with economy. CCP adjusted escalation some time ago and faction ships are overfarmed. Now we can buy faction hull for less than T2 hulls and yes I have problem with that because they obsolete everything below them in terms of price and performance. Chill hmskrecik. Just because you think marauders are the best doesn't mean others will agree. I did amazing things with my rattle and I have comparison because I flew every caldari BS but Widow.

Posted - 2017.03.14 20:59:40 -
[133] - Quote
Mobile Tractor Units are useful in a Marauder (particularly the 'Packrat' or 'Magpie'). I actually wouldn't bother with anything less than a Packrat as it will slow down salvaging as you go. T2 tractor beams (only) and T2 salvagers are also useful, but a flight of salvage drones set to auto-salvage (or individual targets) is almost as useful as the salvager module (and it frees up a high slot).

In terms of the Marauder being expensive by comparison (I've already expressed my thoughts on this), while I know prices fluctuate Pirate Faction hulls have been dropping in price for well over a year and I don't think anything is going to abruptly reverse this trend. If they gave Marauders full T2 resists and toned down Bastion (or replaced it with something else entirely that didn't pigeon-hole it to remaining stationary) I think Marauder hull price would be a moot point.

I am currently away, traveling through time and will be returning last week.

Tractor IS useful. If it isn't to you, that does not prove anything yet.

Tell that to guristas rats stay out of the range. Tractor isn't usefull, just because it is to you does not prove anything. We can do this all day...

Sorta, kinda. To show that something is needed you need to demonstrate that at least one person needs it. To show that somethign is not needed, you need to demonstrate that NO ONE needs it. Good luck.

Also you may have gotten an impression that I use tractor+salvager for what Noctis does better. I don't.

Jeremiah Saken wrote:

Bastion gives you range bonus, MJD gets you away from rats and has time bonus. 1+1=2. I don't force you to play in sniper mode, I played brawler golem myself, but when life give you bonuses and you don't use them you are playing suboptimal. Ergo when playing in sniper mode the ability to tank so huge amount of dps is unnecessary.

Nowhere is being written that you have to use all bonuses at the same time. Want to take advantage from MJD and range bonus? Go for it. But in such scenario you have no grounds to expect any decent performance, about which performance you are so heartbroken.

Jeremiah Saken wrote:

CCP adjusted escalation some time ago and faction ships are overfarmed. Now we can buy faction hull for less than T2 hulls and yes I have problem with that because they obsolete everything below them in terms of price and performance.

Nothing is obsoleted in terms of price and the notion of price obsoleting in terms of performance is utter bullshit. Let me break it down to you.

If you already own given ship, the price you bought it for does not matter.

Think about it for a while. This is what every economist will tell you. It's called sunken cost. These money are already spent and do not exist for you anymore.

Now, if you don't own a ship but are about to, there are roughly two possibilities.

1. You are going to buy this ship for the first time. It's now up to you to evaluate if the price is worth the benefit you will get from using this ship. If yes, you buy this ship for this price. If no, you don't buy it. End of story.

2. You had this ship, you lost it, you want to replace it. This is why I asked you how often do you lose your ships because in this case the price is very important indeed.

And regarding this "obsoleted in performance" the only change I am aware of which happened in recent years was this removal of refitting while in bastion mode. I miss it too but let's be honest, that was "I WIN" button.

Jeremiah Saken wrote:

Chill hmskrecik. Just because you think marauders are the best doesn't mean others will agree. I did amazing things with my rattle and I have comparison because I flew every caldari BS but Widow.

I am chilled, I just cannot stand stupid arguments. If you went a page or two back you would find my post where I explicitly state that I do agree that pirate battleships perform better than Marauders. I'm okay with that fact. I'm not okay with the conclusion that Marauders are worthless because of that. I flew all three pairs: Vindicator/Kronos, Machariel/Vargur and Nightmare/Paladin. Every this ship is great in some way (and I bought all those pirate hulls when they were still in 1bil range) and tell you what? In each case I eventually settled with a Marauder. Despite them having a little worse performance. They just suit me better.

Posted - 2017.03.15 00:29:05 -
[135] - Quote
Yes, if you already own a Marauder the hull cost is moot. I'm not saying they're worthless - just outclassed, overpriced and not as effective as their Pirate brethren (especially considering the massive skill training required). And maybe that's by design, but I can't help but be a little disappointed. Or maybe it's that missiles still suck, heavy drones still suck and the most exciting and riveting form of gameplay in a Marauder is sitting there while in Bastion. Or perhaps it's also because they could each use another mid and low slot, full T2 resists (we're nerfing T3Cs right away anyway) and toning down Bastion. Or maybe (just maybe) PvE has become really stale and Marauders aren't well-suited for roaming, exploration and PvP (they tend to scream "loot pinata" when appearing on Dscan).

I am currently away, traveling through time and will be returning last week.

Yes, if you already own a Marauder the hull cost is moot. I'm not saying they're worthless - just outclassed, overpriced and not as effective as their Pirate brethren (especially considering the massive skill training required). And maybe that's by design, but I can't help but be a little disappointed. Or maybe it's that missiles still suck, heavy drones still suck and the most exciting and riveting form of gameplay in a Marauder is sitting there while in Bastion. Or perhaps it's also because they could each use another mid and low slot, full T2 resists (we're nerfing T3Cs right away anyway) and toning down Bastion. Or maybe (just maybe) PvE has become really stale and Marauders aren't well-suited for roaming, exploration and PvP (they tend to scream "loot pinata" when appearing on Dscan).

Yeah. With the exception of pirate hull prices and refiting when bastion all what you described was true for at least two years. And now it is a problem. What took you so long?

1. You are going to buy this ship for the first time. It's now up to you to evaluate if the price is worth the benefit you will get from using this ship. If yes, you buy this ship for this price. If no, you don't buy it. End of story.

See, you finally got it. There is no reason IMHO to choose marauder over BS faction hull with current state of marauders if you want to buy a hull and fly them in L4 missions. Frankly for that price I would expect them to be way better than current form.

hmskrecik wrote:

I am chilled, I just cannot stand stupid arguments. If you went a page or two back you would find my post where I explicitly state that I do agree that pirate battleships perform better than Marauders. I'm okay with that fact. I'm not okay with the conclusion that Marauders are worthless because of that. I flew all three pairs: Vindicator/Kronos, Machariel/Vargur and Nightmare/Paladin. Every this ship is great in some way (and I bought all those pirate hulls when they were still in 1bil range) and tell you what? In each case I eventually settled with a Marauder. Despite them having a little worse performance. They just suit me better.

Bolded sentence mean in terms of price/performance marauders are worthless to me. I can do L4 better and cheaper in faction BS. Not enough chill hmskrecik. Have a beer or six.

1. You are going to buy this ship for the first time. It's now up to you to evaluate if the price is worth the benefit you will get from using this ship. If yes, you buy this ship for this price. If no, you don't buy it. End of story.

See, you finally got it. There is no reason IMHO to choose marauder over BS faction hull

Sadly you haven't got it. I state that *I* have reasons to buy and use a Marauder.

Jeremiah Saken wrote:

[....] with current state of marauders if you want to buy a hull and fly them in L4 missions. Frankly for that price I would expect them to be way better than current form.

Funny you comment on game balance issues without doing your own homework. I just looked at prices in my region and they are as follows (slightly rounded for better typing)::

Incursus - 350 000Daredevil - 58 000 000Enyo - 27 000 000

Thorax - 9 000 000Vigilant - 203 000 000Deimos - 209 000 000

Megathron - 139 000 000Vindicator - 358 000 000Kronos - 1 175 000 000

See the discrepancy here? Hint: the problem is not with Marauders.

Jeremiah Saken wrote:

hmskrecik wrote:

I flew all three pairs: Vindicator/Kronos, Machariel/Vargur and Nightmare/Paladin. Every this ship is great in some way (and I bought all those pirate hulls when they were still in 1bil range) and tell you what? In each case I eventually settled with a Marauder. Despite them having a little worse performance. They just suit me better.

Bolded sentence mean in terms of price/performance marauders are worthless to me. I can do L4 better and cheaper in faction BS.

Good for you. Feel free to contract to me all your Marauders. At the price you think they are worth of course.

Posted - 2017.03.16 00:59:21 -
[139] - Quote
If you made the decision to train into a Marauder...And the cost of the hull or training was moot...And you didn't care whether or not a Pirate Faction battleship would outperform it...And you were interested in full clear/salvaging and not blitzing...

Then your choice of Marauders is down to three:GGs Paladin (best in Amarr space and against Blood, Sansha and Drones)GGs Vargur (best all-around Marauder, weakest against Guristas)GGs Kronos (best in Caldari-Gallente space, best against Mercs, Serpentis, Guristas)

All three can be armor-tanked (the Vargur less so); the Vargur can also be shield-tanked. In terms of armament:GGs Paladin can be run effectively with either Mega Pulse Lasers (Scorch) or Tachyons (Faction MF)GGs Kronos can be run effectively with either Neutron Blaster Cannons (Null/Void) or 425mm Railguns (Faction AM)GGs Vargur can only really be run with 800mm Autocannons (Faction EMP/Phased Plasma/Fusion, Hail, Barrage)

Rigs are very much personal preference at this point (more tracking, range, cap stability, tank or warp speed).

The Golem has been intentionally left out of this list. It is bar none the worst Marauder for PvE as cruise missiles and torpedoes have horrible damage application, lengthy delay to impact, the least amount of EHP/tank and requires substantial additional training into electronic warfare for Target Painters. It is not effective at shooting anything smaller than battlecruisers and you will lose a lot of time micromanaging target painters, lost DPS against cruisers, massive lost DPS against frigates and volleys in transit. It is almost extremely difficult to volley smaller ships from a room with missiles once they start moving.

Every other Marauder will far-outperform the Golem at full mission clears - in no small part because they can apply instant damage across large distances - but also because guns receive penetrating, smashing and wrecking bonuses. The Kronos and Vargur also have 50mbit of drone bandwidth and can field a flight of medium drones in addition to light drones.

With this addition: it pays off to support drones, if only slightly. On all my Marauders in highs there is Drone Link for range and on my Kronos there is Drone Damage Amp in lows.

Also I Intentionally dedicate one mid slot on each ship as utility to be freely replaced with whatever is necessary for given mission. On some missions you need propulsion, on others it would be completely unused and thus Omni Tracking would be more useful, for example. The choice is purely personal here.

With this addition: it pays off to support drones, if only slightly. On all my Marauders in highs there is Drone Link for range and on my Kronos there is Drone Damage Amp in lows.

Also I Intentionally dedicate one mid slot on each ship as utility to be freely replaced with whatever is necessary for given mission. On some missions you need propulsion, on others it would be completely unused and thus Omni Tracking would be more useful, for example. The choice is purely personal here.

I usually don't augment my drone range as I have 57km already and find that the more distance I give them - the more they tend to hang themselves with it (nothing wrong with that setup though). The Auto Targeting II system is useful to give you a passive 11 targets when not in Bastion (not needed with Advanced Target Management V). A single Salvager II can also really speed up salvaging in conjunction with salvage drones.

Having a dedicated swappable mid slot is a good idea. For my blaster Kronos the sensor booster is swapped out for a Large Micro Jump Drive on a few missions. I find that the Deadspace MWD and pair of range-scripted tracking computers are indispensable, though - as I often need it to close 10-20km for a better firing solution.

The Golem has been intentionally left out of this list. It is bar none the worst Marauder for PvE as cruise missiles and torpedoes have horrible damage application, lengthy delay to impact, the least amount of EHP/tank and requires substantial additional training into electronic warfare for Target Painters. It is not effective at shooting anything smaller than battlecruisers and you will lose a lot of time micromanaging target painters, lost DPS against cruisers, massive lost DPS against frigates and volleys in transit. It is almost extremely difficult to volley smaller ships from a room with missiles once they start moving.

Every other Marauder will far-outperform the Golem at full mission clears - in no small part because they can apply instant damage across large distances - but also because guns receive penetrating, smashing and wrecking bonuses.

Apparently my experience with the Golem is a lot more pleasant than yours. I don't have the skills to fly a Kronos or Vargur, but I can fly a Golem and a Paladin equally well. Actually my skills for the Paladin are somewhat superior, because my gunnery skills are substantially better than my missile skills (at the moment). Nevertheless I get better overall results with a Golem.

Damage application is something you can train and fit for.

While there is some delay to impact, I still hit targets within 120km (or so) before the launcher is ready to fire again. I don't think I ever lost a single volley within this range.

Maybe the Golem has the least amount of EHP/tank of the Marauders, but this doesn't matter at all since my omnitanked Golem is way overtanked for PvE anyway.

Yes a Target Painter is necessary imho. But I don't think the skill requirements are a good argument against flying a Golem. Likewise you could say that a Golem is bad, because it's the only Marauder that requires missile skills. Also micromanaging a single Target Painter (that's all I need) is a non-issue.

Effectiveness against cruisers and frigates depends on choosing the correct ammo. Oneshotting cruisers is possible. To be able to oneshot frigates you usually need to switch to Precision. With regard to effectiveness the Paladin outperforms the Golem against targets which are weak against EM/therm and at range. However, if you go against Guristas, Serpentis or Angel Cartel for example, the Paladin sucks and is nowhere near as effective as a Golem (not to mention the performance against targets which are close). In my experience (largely from running missions in Caldari, Amarr and Ammatar space) the Golem is better overall by quite a bit.

However, I'm aware that the style of running missions has significant effect on how you experience ship performance. Personally I dislike leaving stuff behind, so usually I clear, loot and salvage everything (yes, I know that that's not the most efficient way to run missions). Since I'm lazy my preferred method is warp in, hit Bastion, launch MTU, aggro everything (getting them closer to speed up looting), clear the grid.

Furthermore I'd say that fitting a Golem is more difficult compared to fitting a Paladin, which could be held against the Golem. The ideal fit (for me) costs roughly 700m ISK (estimated price in the fitting window). It is perfect for PvE imho, but the bling might draw some attention to it. Since ganker presence in my area seems to have increased lately, I switched to a different fit, though. I sacrificed some damage application and the third Salvager to bring up the tank to near PvP standard while using cheaper mods (which require more CPU; roughly 350m ISK for the whole fit; and the fit is still good enough).

Guns are better than missiles due to long missile cycle times and DPS lost to overkill from grouped missiles. Plus the ability to kill frigates at range. Even with 4-5 TPs and the ability to one-shot non-elite cruisers, my Vargur times were better than my Golem times at full clears or blitzing.

Regardless, the Paladin and Kronos are spiffy gun-boats as well if you avoid the NPCs they're weakest to.

Overall, the differences between the gun Marauaders doesn't seem to justify making the claim that one of them is the best, IMO.

Pon Farr Memorial: once every 7 years, all the carebears in high-sec must PvP or they will be temp-banned.

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